IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Opening all of the floodgates on the Mighty Mississippi; Big Oil's big fight for its taxpayer welfare; Japan's nuclear nightmare: Surprise! It's worse than previously thought; Breaking the record for weather disasters; PLUS: Another blow for the climate change denial industry... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

A record number of billion-dollar weather disasters for so early in the year

The U.S. has already had five weather disasters costing more than a billion dollars this year, which has set a record for the most number of such disasters so early in the year. We've already beat the total for billion-dollar weather disaster for all of 2010 (three), and with hurricane season still to come, this year has a chance of beating 2008's record of nine such disasters.

The "Wegman Report" suggested climate scientists colluded in their studies and questioned whether global warming was real. The report has since become a touchstone among climate change naysayers.

The journal publisher's legal team "has decided to retract the study," said CSDA journal editor Stanley Azen of the University of Southern California, following complaints of plagiarism. A November review by three plagiarism experts of the 2006 congressional report for USA TODAY also concluded that portions contained text from Wikipedia and textbooks. The journal study, co-authored by Wegman student Yasmin Said, detailed part of the congressional report's analysis.

Severin Borenstein, co-director of U.C. Berkeley's Center for the Study of Energy Markets: "Gasoline prices are a function of world oil prices and refining margins. The oil companies are quick to point out that they are not to blame for oil prices because the price is set in the world market, or which they are a small share. That is all true. But one implication of that is that the incremental change in production that might result from changing oil subsidies will have no impact on world oil prices, and therefore no impact on gasoline prices."

[A] Greek proverb I wish every elected federal and state official would recite before starting any talks about our energy policies and challenges: "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

In other words, the strength of our nation is dependent upon leaders who are able to see beyond the country's immediate needs.

Mississippi flooding to affect national economy:
Risk to refineries and shipping areas largely diverted - for now - but farmland ruin may raise corn prices. Just how much will the flooding cost the southern flooded areas - and the rest of the U.S.? (CBS News)

The nightmare Mississippi flood scenario: [I]n a nightmare scenario, it could damage significant sectors of the U.S. economy, affecting investors everywhere in addition to those with homes and businesses in the South and Southeast. (MarketWatch)

[T]he corps is confronted with a Devil's choice: cause a flood that would drown the livelihoods of central Louisiana farmers and fishermen, or let the high river roll and frantically sandbag 200 miles of levees to try to prevent flooding in the state's two biggest cities.
...
"It's going to remain high for weeks and weeks. And that's the scare. All it takes is one weak spot" in a levee to flood New Orleans.

In the 1970s and '80s, Houck led a fight to prevent real estate development in the spillway zone. His argument was simple: The corps designed the zone to be intentionally flooded. Allowing homes, farms and businesses to settle there would only make the decision to open the gates harder.

In a move that echoes the approach taken by the Netherlands, which has long wrestled with such problems, a nascent movement made up of activists and city leaders victimized by flooding is pushing for "natural river defenses." They want to set the rivers free, if just a little.

TEPCO had suggested that only about 70% of the core had melted down. But after recalibrating its instruments for measuring water levels inside the reactor, the company now believes that the core has entirely melted down.
...
There's some reason to think that this "China syndrome", as it is informally known, didn't happen.

The problems included emergency pumps that were missing or did not work, or equipment that was stored in areas that could be vulnerable to earthquakes or floods, said Eliot Brenner, an NRC spokesman.
...
The NRC issued a rare "red finding," its most severe citation, against the Tennessee Valley Authority, which runs the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant near Athens, Ala. Regulators said a stuck valve could have caused an emergency cooling system to fail.

America's Nuclear Nightmare:
The U.S. has 31 reactors just like Japan's - but regulators are ignoring the risks and boosting industry profits (Rolling Stone)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

EPA Delays Rule on Industrial EmissionsThe regulation to limit pollutants at power plants is suspended after protests from industry. It is the Obama administration's latest concession on the environment. (LA Times)

[I]f the IPCC's critics were hoping that an independent American review of climate science would vindicate their skepticism, they're in for an unpleasant surprise. In 2008, Congress tasked the National Research Council (NRC) - a branch of the prestigious National Academies of Science - with reviewing the state of climate science and our options for responding to climate change.

Eighteen non-organic produce industry groups have written the Agriculture Secretary in an an effort to muffle the impact of the upcoming USDA report on pesticide residues. The Environmental Working Group uses the annual data to highlight the "Dirty Dozen" fruits and vegetables.

A warmer Southwest might very well mean a dustier Southwest. That's the conclusion of a new study by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California-Los Angeles that has far-reaching implications for all of Utah, where healthy range is vital to livestock, wildlife and recreation, as well as air quality and water supplies.

The Obama administration is ordering an ambitious cleanup of the Chicago River, a dramatic step toward improving an urban waterway treated for more than a century as little more than an industrialized sewage canal.
...
Scouring disease-causing bacteria from the Chicago River and keeping raw sewage out of its channels could cost an average Cook County homeowner less than $7 a month, federal officials concluded as part of their order to make the urban waterway safer for recreation.

Watermelons have been bursting by the score in eastern China after farmers gave them overdoses of growth chemicals during wet weather, creating what state media called fields of "land mines."
...
But the report underscores how farmers in China are abusing both legal and illegal chemicals, with many farms misusing pesticides and fertilizers.

How is it anyone bringing up haarp tech back in the IPCC fraud days, was treated like a conspiracy nut, while it was actually conspiracy fact? Not one answer to it at the time. It was indeed one question that was dodged with BS answers like oh it's classified. Those were not answers, they were cover-up's. In fact you won't even acknowledge the information presented to you now.

HAARP Denier meet CO2 Denier.

Look at the bright side, you wanted us to believe in man made global warming, Now we do, just not the way you thought we would. e.g. from the tailpipe vs. from manipulating the ionosphere.

Any chance of us paying for it willingly knowing the truth? None. Why would we, it's like living under lords and kings. I'd rather they died. But there's a good chance the continued false science, man made global warming from the tailpipe, will be slipped in step by rotten step, by corrupt officials who care more about money and re-election than the constitution or damage from manipulating the ionosphere with technology hidden from the public.

So just like everything else fake, it will be a fake hidden tax and laws following agenda 21, clamping down on the rights of people, instead of public oversight of the real technology really causing it.

You still wonder why I don't care about CO2? Don't kid yourself, while CO2 still can't be proven as the culprit, people now are showing science fact, about where the next HIT will be from HAARP technology. So every time they turn that equipment on, it costs us up to a trillion in damage, on top of the fake tax to fix a fake problem, all to be paid to who again?

line in the sand. Shall we continue? I mean I'm willing to study acidity in the pond, if your willing to study when haarp technology is operational and what frequency and power and duration it's operating at.

So you haven't looked at ocean acidification yet, but you're absolutely certain that the research you've done so far is sufficient to completely override the basic physics of solar radiation.

Do you have any links to any data that correlate or even illuminate a HAARP influence with any empirical field data from any of the other multiple lines of evidence beyond atmospheric concentration of CO2?

You falsely characterize my response to you as 'not willing to disucss this'. To be clear, it makes no difference to me what you believe in --- I am only interested in the quality of the data.

Asking you for links to verifiable scientific data is just the first step in discussing any influences that might be at play in the multiple lines of evidence observed in Earth's interdependent systems.

Everyone was arguing about hocky sticks, those IPCC fraud days. While your welcome to re-define this description of the time period in your own words, your not going to change the topic outright. It's the TIME PERIOD I am concerned with. I brought up haarp technology back then and nobody on the web would address it, just deflect it.

You've got your whole show on green, I had but one post. Perhaps #3 can explain her conclusion? I've made my conclusion pretty clear, haarp technology is being used as a weapon. Weapons kill people RIGHT NOW. That's what I argue.

If Des says, CO2 and the pond acidity is a side effect of weapon usage, I think it doesn't matter one bit when you get right down to it as people are dying right now. That's what I argue. Maybe she was going right along with me? I'm not sure, as I am now on the defense, accused of attacking Des. And further clouding things up, with having to address two sets of loaded questions at the same time.

It's not haarp, it's haarp technology, or more than one ionospheric weapon, and not to be lumped in with scalar weapons either which are different science, separate.

Now put your self in my shoes, I find what looks like haarp technology being used as a weapon, by someone who has followed weather since he was five, I bring this to the green news report thread, to get some input, but find myself defending what I found instead. Stuffed into the CO2 Denier box. Fine I'll take that box. I think there is climate change, global warming, global cooling, whatever it's called these days, global starvation. But, If I didn't put two and two together, I might think the same entity are behind haarp technology so they can both create the problems and profit from them. It's no longer a theory for me. In that light, it's an expensive switch they turn on and bombard us with. 20 Billion to a trillion every time they turn it on plus the deaths. That's unsustainable. Or it's forced population reduction. Or maybe they are trying to shove the Fukushima radiation out 200 miles into space? I don't know the details, because there is no public oversight. Kind of like elections. I'm sure you agree.

I don't hear you denying this as a possibility, and I still haven't heard you take a side about who profits from agenda 21. Of course I don't follow your blog regularly these days either, so maybe You have. But you haven't with me. I don't even want to be here if I have to defend against you. I think of you as a truth seeker. Was I wrong?

So, I have to ask, where do you really stand about profits on C02 are going? Where do you stand on agenda 21? Where do you stand on the haarp technology being used as a weapon. Where do you stand on the possibility someone is behind both "the cause of" and "the profit of" earthquakes, and weather disasters et. al.

Get what I'm getting at, or shall we go round and round some more in a negative downward spiral?

For the record I did visit the link DES posted. I said I would and I did, and now I re-visit it. Shall I drop my point and focus on the arguments in the threads I see on her links? That stuff is over my head, I can't prove or disprove any of it. I can however see others who appear to understand it and disagree. I can understand electricity, electronics, transmitters, I can understand bouncing RF, I can understand anyone who can control the FCC and has the money pit to buy a bunch of RF transmitters can start experimenting and manipulating the ionosphere. Even if they don't know what they are doing. So that science I get. If it operates at 3E8 I get it mostly, I don't get endless historical data, and going from thing to thing, arguing about samples buried in the earth, never really covering all possibilities like magnetic, solar, electronic, rf. I guess I just don't see how my farts can cause a problem in a 70MPH wind. Or a car for that matter.

I already am green. Probably more than you. From lightweight servers, to LED bulbs to CFL's. There are problems with all this green stuff. CFL's are poison bad, LED's are expensive bad, and the servers are a pain in the ass to setup on embedded low watt use scenarios.

I like to cut right to the center of it all.

If you can do that, we can get along. If not you'll need to ban me for asking the wrong questions. I am sour. I have been shunned. I don't like being called a conspiracy nut, when pointing out conspiracy fact. If that's what you think I was doing when you accuse me of attack Des, then there really is no hope for you.

I have nothing against DES. But I won't stand for gate keeping truth either.

My post #2 was meant for You and the Public to go visit, and decide for yourself. Not to be argued, whittled down, and have my account destroyed as a troll.

I see. The days that deniers were claiming "fraud" where apparently there is none at all. Okay. Why don't we call it the Climate Denier Fraud days, just so it's more clear.

I've made my conclusion pretty clear, haarp technology is being used as a weapon. Weapons kill people RIGHT NOW. That's what I argue.

Ooookay. Even if we stipulate you are correct there, what exactly does that have to do with climate change? If you are suggesting that climate change is caused by HAARP, then you'll need to respond to Desi's query asking how it leads to ocean acidification. If you don't believe climate change is caused by HAARP, then the question is, what does your concern about HAARP have to do with the subjects discussed in this blog item?

If Des says, CO2 and the pond acidity is a side effect of weapon usage, I think it doesn't matter one bit when you get right down to it as people are dying right now. That's what I argue.

Of course, I don't believe she has said that, and I don't believe the burden is on her to do that, anymore than it would be if someone showed up here to say that Major League Baseball was the cause of climate change and ocean acidification. It seems it would be up to the person making the charge to present the evidence, links to the science, etc.

If your argument is "people are dying because of HAARP!", then that's fine, but unless you are suggesting it is also the cause of climate change, it doesn't seem to be the appropriate thread for that argument.

Where your argument counters the idea that global warming is due to the unfettered and unprecedented relase of carbon into the atmosphere due to the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels and is caused, somehow, by HAARP instead, it seems, again, the burden is on your to offer the evidence for that charge.

If you don't wish to present evidence, and simply wish to make the claim for some reason, that's up to you. But you'll forgive Desi and/or myself if we feel the argument hijacks the thread and sidetracks from its main topic of concern.

So, I have to ask, where do you really stand about profits on C02 are going?

I'd prefer to see a carbon tax, in which case, "profits" would go to the federal government to pay off our debt, etc. That, however, is not politically feasible, it seems, so the idea of a cap and trade market was proposed as the more palatable alternative for Republicans. While imperfect, it would hopefully accomplish the same thing. Unfortunately, they have now backed away from that as well (largely because Dems joined in favor, and because the Rs are controlled entirely by the Fossil Fuel Companies.)

But no, I don't believe the entire thing is a profit making scam, ala the claims of Alex Jones' et al, if that's what you're asking.

Where do you stand on agenda 21?

I don't know the full details of the UN's Agenda 21 (having not read it), but from what I understand it to be, no, the effort does not concern me as to some sort of worldwide scam. If you'd like to enlighten me about your concerns about it, I'll be happy to read them.

Where do you stand on the haarp technology being used as a weapon.

I don't know enough about the allegations to offer you an opinion, frankly.

Where do you stand on the possibility someone is behind both "the cause of" and "the profit of" earthquakes, and weather disasters et. al.

I have not come across evidence that I find to be particular convincing, but again, as noted above, it is not an area I have deeply explored. As I can't cover everybody's theories, in detail, everywhere, I respect those who are working on each, and look forward to the evidence supporting their findings. If I am convinced, great. If I am not, also great. Doesn't mean I'm either right or wrong, and I encourage all avenues of investigative study.

If you can do that, we can get along. If not you'll need to ban me for asking the wrong questions.

We do not do that. Perhaps you are thinking of another website.

I have nothing against DES. But I won't stand for gate keeping truth either.

We do not do that either. If you are accusing her of doing so, I think your accusation is without merit. You have posted here whatever you like. And plenty of it. And I take the accusation quite seriously, as perhaps you've noticed.

My post #2 was meant for You and the Public to go visit, and decide for yourself. Not to be argued, whittled down, and have my account destroyed as a troll.

Look. People are welcome to post their opinions here on any manner of things. We have among the most open commenting policy on the Internets. We don't even require free registration. Just post away and follow the few simple rules we have published. But if you think others are not entitled to respond to your points, and ask you to defend them, you are likely misguided. Your feet may be held to the same fire that mine and everyone elses are. If you don't like that idea, then YOU are being a gate keeper and YOU are "banning" others "for asking the wrong questions."

Tra La La La La, I responded to your comments here on the other thread.

Ocean acidification is only one line of empirical evidence (among many) for which skeptics & outright deniers seem to have no credible explanation that could account for the observed changes, whether via HAARP or something else.

As always, the excellent site Skeptical Science is useful for those who are genuinely interested in furthering their understanding of the scientific evidence.